Alexandrian Deceptions: Exposing The Nothing Only Conspiracies Against God’s Words – Introduction

“…but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.” Isa 66:2

“I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.” Psa 138:2

 “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” John 17:17

“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:” 2Pe 1:19

“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” Rev 22:18-19

Today we will begin a series of articles to address the claims of a man named Fred Butler.  Butler recently wrote a book about King James Onlyism called Royal Deceptions: Exposing the KING JAMES ONLY Conspiracies Against God’s Word.  

We live in the last days of the Church Age.  We live in the days of Laodicea (Rev 3).  With the motto of “Any port in the storm”, men will cling to any “evidence” or “proof” that they can find in an effort to not have to submit themselves to the authority of a book.  Some doubters and skeptics will inevitably be attracted to the arguments of Mr. Butler.  It will be the equivalent of the millions of dishonest skeptics who flock to the foolishness of prominent atheists like Dawkins, Degrasse, etc.  They flock to these foolish philosophies because of problems that exist in their heart.  This connection between Nothing Onlyism and atheism is absolutely true regardless of how it makes you feel.  We’ll see another connection at the end of this article.

It seems that the charge of “Psychological Manipulation” and its related terms gets thrown around haphazardly on the internet these days.  So we will be careful and only throw around the claim carefully in these articles.  That said, the title itself is pure psychological manipulation.  It must be answered.  Lord willing these articles will be a good defense against Butler’s book.  

First, Butler wants you to think that we, as Bible Believers, somehow have a “conspiracy” against God’s word.  Later, we will deal with the “against God’s word” part.  But now I want you to see the subtlety behind calling this a conspiracy.  By labeling the evidence and proofs that are used to come up with the King James Only position as a “conspiracy”, Butler is trying to subconsciously manipulate people into disregarding the evidence. Frankly, this is what is going on 95% of the time when people label someone’s position as a “conspiracy” or “conspiracy theory”.

We could get into a long digression about the nature of power structures and how groups that put themselves into an authority position (Like Alexandrian scholarship…) will always create terms and labels that will keep people from examining the evidence so that they just trust the “authorities”.  But suffice it to say, this is what Butler is doing and it’s no more than classic psychological manipulation. Therefore, if all’s fair in war, then we will go ahead and title our series of articles “The Nothing Only Conspiracies Against God’s Words”.  The only difference will be that our title is tongue-in-cheek.  We want people to examine the evidence whether it is labelled a “conspiracy” or not.  

The classic joke example of a conspiracy theory is Alex Jones’ rant about “Gay frogs” and how additives in tap water are making humans and frogs gay.  This is quite out there and when people like Butler call the beliefs of Bible Believers a “conspiracy” he wants people to think that our beliefs are like the “Gay frogs” stuff.  That is how psychological manipulation works.  He doesn’t say that these ideas are the same, but by using the same label, he wants others to make the connection.  

Just because something is labelled a “conspiracy theory” doesn’t make it not true.  Truth is separate from the labels given by its detractors.

On the other hand, it must also be said that not all conspiracy theories are true.  By nature, conspiracy theories are explanations of things that are almost unexplainable.  We must always remember the nature of truth and how we arrive at truth when we deal in such subjects.  Reject the label and look at the facts.  Butler would make us think that he is helping people to do this.  As we look at his book, we will show that he is not. 

It would be handy at this juncture to ask ourselves the great question of the Bible Believer.  “What saith the Scripture?”  In other words, does the Bible have anything to say about conspiracies?  The fact that Butler writes a book with a title that includes “conspiracy” and then doesn’t tell you what the Bible says about the topic is telling.  

There are 20 words in the KJB that come from “to conspire”.  Most of the popular modern versions have even more. Webster’s 1828 gives the primary definition of “To agree, by oath, covenant or otherwise, to commit a crime; to plot; to hatch treason.”  Although changing the Bible isn’t a crime in America it most certainly is a crime against God’s laws.  The modern Webster’s dictionary gives “An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.”  If you don’t think that there are groups that exist that are conspiring to change the Bible then you aren’t paying attention.

The first appearance is in Gen 37 when the sons of Jacob “conspired” against Joseph to get rid of them.  The second is telling also because it is a false accusation (at best a half truth) made by a demonic, false king, Saul in I Sam 22:8.  Those two references set the tone for the use of the word at any time and any place in the universe.  THERE ARE CONSPIRACIES.  Just because people accuse a set of beliefs as being “conspiracies” doesn’t make them not true.  Joseph’s brothers really were conspiring against him.  Put away your pitchfork and stop shouting “Conspiracy theorist” at the top of your lungs.

Furthermore, as the Bible predicts there will always be “higher ups”, be they politicians or religious leaders and scholars, who will throw around the accusation of “conspiracies” when they feel their position is threatened.  You gotta get that!!!  That’s King Saul in I Sam 22.  That’s exactly what Butler is trying to do.

We find the “conspiracy” by the “scholars” and “religious elites” in Ezekiel 22:25 and 26: “There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof. Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.”

This is what God says about conspiracies.  Believe something else if you like, but it is what it is.  And when a man writes a book with the implication that “conspiracies” are incorrect, then he shows his true colours.  Get used to that.  There are many points where Butler will show his Christian character when it comes to dealing with plain Bible truths.  

We could also point out that conservative Christians like Butler have their own conspiracy theories that are acceptable to them. Him and Johnnyboy Macarthur both reject evolution.  This is a conspiracy theory.  But I guess it’s ok for him.  Also, the same could be said for their church’s outlook on Covid.  So he is a conspiracy theorist.  But he doesn’t bring up any of that in his book.  He wants you to think that only idiots like “KJV-Onlyists” are crazy conspiracy theorists and that therefore their ideas should be rejected.   

The second claim in the title of Butler’s book must also be examined.  He thinks that Bible Believers somehow have a conspiracy “against God’s Word”.  On the surface, this claim is absolutely absurd.  But when you really break down what he is saying, Butler believes that only the general ideas contained best in the Alexandrian manuscripts are “God Word”.  In that sense; yes.  There is a “conspiracy” (I guess you could call it that, minus the “crime” part…) against the beliefs of Nothing Onlyists.  But these things are never clearly defined or spoken about plainly.  So dummies like me have to write blog posts to fill in the gaps and point out the (here we go again…) psychological manipulation inherent in Butler’s book.  WE HAVEN’T EVEN GOTTEN PAST THE TITLE YET, FOLKS!  We’ve already run into two clear examples of Butler’s Psychological manipulation.  

He thinks that the conspiracy is that King James Bible Believers are going against God’s Word (which is apparently nothing that you or I or anyone in the last 1000 years has ever seen).  Telling people that the King James Bible that they hold in their hands is perfect is bad.  We should be telling them that they never have seen or will ever see the perfect, “given by inspiration” Scripture.  We are conspiring to rip “nothing” out of their hands and put the King James Bible in its place.  How devious!

As I wrote earlier, this easily connects to the doctrines of atheism.  The famous atheist Lawrence Krauss was lambasted by religious people when he wrote a book about how “nothing” is really “something”.  He wrote, ““One of the things about quantum mechanics is not only can nothing become something, nothing always becomes something, nothing is unstable. Nothing will always produce something in quantum mechanics.”  Both Nothing Onlyists and Atheists pretend that they have something to offer when in reality, they offer (literally) nothing.  

If the Bible Believers are guilty of any sort of conspiracy, it is nothing more than a conspiracy to point out the ridiculous beliefs of Nothing Onlyism.   

So which is it?  Is there a conspiracy of Bible Believers who are trying to take nothing out of people’s hands?  Or is there a conspiracy of people led by the Devil trying to get people to stop believing the King James Bible and believing “nothing” instead?  When Butler claims the former, he is doing what the Psychologists call “Projecting”.  Butler is guilty of being part of a conspiracy and yet he is claiming to be exposing a conspiracy against his set of beliefs.  Textbook projection.  Textbook psychological manipulation. 

I’ll now end this article on a positive note.  Be patient!  There is plenty of negativity coming in the future.

The book does bring up one really good point.  Butler is correct that the doctrines and personal lives of men like Wescott, Hort, and Tischendorff have very little bearing on the issue of the King James Bible.  

By nature, history is a fickle field of study.  We can’t put it under a microscope or test it on monkeys.  If I had to guess, there are plenty of jarring character flaws in the lives of the main characters of the history of Biblical criticism.  Having said that, it is not easy to prove this.  It is so hard, in fact, that I don’t think it should even come up.

In my home church, I’ve spent probably around 15 hours over the course of years teaching on the King James Bible.  Westcott and Hort have been worthy of nothing more than a couple of passing comments.  Whether they were good men or not is inconsequential to the matter at hand.

Let’s say that Westcott was the most sanctified Christian in Great Britain when he lived.  Would his holiness affect whether the Alexandrian texts should be used to get rid of the King James Bible?  Of course not.  Again, their personalities and holiness don’t affect whether their doctrine is true or not.  Moses was a murderer with a huge temper.  He was still used of God to write 5 books of the Bible, despite his character flaws.  Butler clearly shows that attacks on the character of the “Fathers” of textual criticism doesn’t affect the inherent truth of textual criticism.  

So it has taken 5 pages to address just the title of the book.  Please stay tuned and we’ll examine more of Butler’s deceptions in the coming weeks.  There is plenty of material.  

As I always write when I blog about this subject: Reject the KJV if you want.  Believe that only the ideas of God are preserved, not the actual words.  It’s a free country.  But even in a free country, don’t claim that Butler’s reasons are good reasons.  They are not.  Lord willing this will be clearly demonstrated.  

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